Preparing for my future self

Last month was my birthday and I was preparing the evening before for an easy day. I thought maybe I would shower on my birthday, but then I thought, do I really want to do that on my day off. So I showered that evening instead of procrastinating I also:

Put clean sheets on the bed and did as much work as possible the day before.

Picked out a fun birthday outfit.

Created a pretty space to read, journal and watch a movie.

Put most of my smoothie ingredients in the smoothie blender container and set it in the fridge for a quick blend in the morning.

Wrote out a list of fun things I wanted to do like take a nature walk and read.

Cleaned up the house.

Did the dishes.

Got books from the library.

As I was preparing for my birthday, I was thinking I should do this more often. Too often stuff I could have done the night or day before, I end up doing the next day. But, what if I thought, “If it were a special day, would I want to do this the next day?” or “Will my future self really want to do this tomorrow?”

We talked about this in the declutter class as well. When we don’t do our decluttering, we are only making it harder for ourselves the next day. We want to double up our time. But, if we didn’t want to do 15 minutes today, do we really think we will want to do 30 minutes the next day?

When we procrastinate into the “I don’t wannas,” we are usually thinking about the difficulty, tiredness or boredom of right now. If you think about a finished project, how you will feel when it’s done, how you will enjoy it tomorrow if it’s already complete you can use that energy to get it done today.

I can care for tomorrow me, by preparing today. By not procrastinating. I have been doing this most days now. Future me is so happy.

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1 Comment

I love this Beth, thank you! We’ve just moved into a newly built home on 5 acres, and there is so much to do. It would be very easy to just keep going onto the next and then the next task, and not take a break. So this year I plan to take a Sabbath every week – a day of rest, doing craft, whatever I want. (This was a suggestion of yours as well.) So last Friday I ‘prepared for my future self’. This involved finishing my paid work for the day, and then pushing ahead through all the housework, a couple of loads of washing, and some meals for the weekend. Saturday was then totally freed up to be my Sabbath – pottering around planning my garden, doing some scrapbooking, and ‘reclaiming my space’. I plan on it being a weekly ritual.